


The Orcs Go Marching

by HSavinien



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Avalanches, Fear, Gen, Interlude, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, Orcs, Post-Hobbit, Pre-War of the Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26731933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: Bofur only went to search for crafting supplies. Instead he's the first to see the army marching through their territory.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 7





	The Orcs Go Marching

Bofur curled into the smallest possible crack in the rock, clamped his ears between his knees and his hands over the back of his neck, and breathed until the crashing rumble of the orc army was no longer a sound so large it made up the entire world. There had been no warning; the Ravens had refused to fly for months, since the winged beasts passed overhead on their way toward Gondor. It was luck - good or ill - that had sent Bofur out this direction hunting for petrified wood for a project of Bifur's. The Mountain hadn't seen anything like this since the Battle of the Five Armies and vast numbers of them were between Bofur and any chance to sound an alarm. Bofur grit his teeth and tried to think over the din. 

What would Bilbo do? Something clever and tricksy, sneaking through the whole of the army like the shadow he nearly was sometimes. Bilbo was gone, though, back in the Shire and growing too creaky and settled to be able to visit for these many years. Bofur couldn't imagine himself doing something like that. You needed light feet to make it work. 

Dwalin was an old campaigner and would have found a weak point in the marching line to bull through like an axe through cheese. Nori would have sidled and wheedled… But he didn't have their skills, just himself and a forager's pack with a few days' provisions if he stretched it and a couple of simple tools.

(Bombur and Kolri were preparing for a new child. Bifur was working on an addition to the workshop. Dwalin had promised to attend council meetings in Balin's stead for a few years and couldn't miss one to wander with him for a two-day jaunt. And so Bofur had ventured out on his own.)

And now he was stuck with an army between him and everyone he loved. 

They continued, keeping time with a rumbling drumbeat and ragged growing voices chanting some kind of orcish marching song, moving three or four abreast. The footfalls landed enough in time to make the rock he was hiding in vibrate. There wouldn't be a rockslide; he'd chosen the spot better than that, even at a scramble, but farther down the slope, the scree was loose enough to make it a danger. They were close enough to smell: sweat, rot, blood, and the rank tang of fear.

Bofur pressed into the rock and breathed as evenly as possible.

He had choices. A few, at least. There was no way to fight or sneak through the mass of enemies, but if he could make a distraction, he might yet survive to warn the Mountain. The terrain, his pickaxe, a little bit of black powder, and nightfall, those would be his best chance. Bofur leaned his forehead against the stone and  _ felt _ . The vibrations all around him, the weakness of the scree slope… Bofur was a decent toymaker, a reliable lad in a brawl, a dab hand with a flute, but the thing he was really good at was stone-sense. It had served him well in the mines; always useful to have a sensitive fellow to feel the creak in the tunnel wall that indicated a faultline  _ before _ the fissure opened and dropped rubble on the miners’ heads. There were possibilities here that might work in his favor.

The first thing to do was have a bite and take a nap. 

It was no use trying to set a fuse hungry and sleepy and he certainly wasn’t going to do it in the light. Bofur reckoned the odds of being found in this cranny weren’t high, so after a few bites of waybread and a sip of water, he curled into a ball, pulled his hat down hard over his ears to muffle the noise, and slept. He didn’t have as great a gift for it as Bombur, who could tune out the entire world and turn into a squashy rock for eight hours at a stretch, but Bofur had lived near ironworks in a house full of children for many years of his adult life and considered himself fairly talented in the area of sleeping.

The noise still hadn’t abated when he woke two hours later, so that was at least a few thousand fighters going somewhere with no good intentions. The light was dying, glimmers of orange still showing beyond the mountains, but the valley the orcs marched through was dimming rapidly. The mass of bodies had sprouted a few torches, but as long as he covered everything metal about him, the light wouldn’t be enough to let anyone spot him, just add to the nightblindness of the marchers. He tied a handkerchief around his belt buckle, stashed his few pieces of jewelry in the bottom of his pack for safety, and got the powder and fuses prepared.

Edging out of the fissure, Bofur made his way carefully along the slope until he reached the edge of the scree, dropping to his knees to catch a pebble before it could slide away from the toe of his boot. This was the spot. He hiked upward, toward the wall of rock above the slope. There were a couple of cracks within reach that looked promising. Choosing one with a good slant into the wall, he planted his charge, daisy-chaining the fuses together to stretch them. He didn’t want to be too close to run. Bofur checked his angles, doubleknotted his bootlaces, and belted his pack tight. With one long glance down toward the marching army, he was ready.

He crouched, shielding the end of the fuse while he struck a spark with his flint and belt knife. He breathed on it, waiting for it to catch. It did. Bofur jumped up and started downslope at an angle away from the slope as fast as he could safely go. 

The sound was nothing at first, just a  _ whump _ , a  _ crack _ , a trickle, then a low rumble out of time with the marching steps down in the valley. 

The drumbeats faltered into chaos, cries of alarm keening upwards like sparks as the rumble swallowed itself and grew into a world-breaking roar.

Bofur ran, leaping like a goat over cracks and stumbling blocks, his hands pressed over his ears as tightly as he could. The toe of his boot caught and he let go of his ears to cover the back of his neck instead, bowling like a skittles ball any which way until he fetched up against a boulder. He rolled to his feet again, shaking the spots from his vision, reoriented himself, and ran.

By the time he reached the valley floor, gasping, it was boiling with orcs like a disturbed anthill. He ducked into a ditch, gulped water from his canteen, and checked the lines for escape. The avalanche had built wider than he could have hoped for and most of the orcs coming up the line - showing more cooperation than he was used to - were occupied with attempting to dig their fellows free...or at least salvage their weapons and gear. It was enough of a distraction for now. Limping on a dinged knee, he slipped through their line, unremarked in the mess, and struck out for home at his best ground-eating pace.

Bofur’s mouth twisted under his mustaches. Whatever had this many orcs moving was something that Fíli and the council needed to know about as soon as possible. Trouble was brewing, they’d not have sent Glóin and Gimli to the Last Homely House if it were not, but this seemed bigger than they’d feared. Armies spoke a louder tale than sneering messengers. His heart ached for it. He’d hoped never again to see swords raised against the Mountain, but they were as prepared as they could be. Years of plenty had built up their storehouses and Nori and Dwalin and Kíli had planned against disasters large and small. They would last. They  _ would _ last. The Mountain would stand as sentinel against rising dark until every dwarf and ally within it fell.


End file.
